The patriarch of the Istanbul Orthodox Church, Bartholomew I, considered the patriarch of Constantinople and the highest spiritual leader of the Orthodox Church worldwide, visited Lithuania yesterday on a trip that seeks to establish a new independent branch of the Orthodox Church in the Baltic country separated from Moscow, in what constitutes a new challenge to Russia, whose Church claims its role as “Third Rome” and has fought for centuries with the Patriarchate of Istanbul for the leadership of the Orthodox Church. Many Lithuanian Orthodox faithful are Ukrainian and Belarusian refugees, which has sharpened the differences between the Churches of Lithuania and Russia despite the fact that years ago the Patriarch of Constantinople himself tried to mediate. In 2019, Bartholomew I already unleashed the wrath of the Russian Orthodox Church by officially recognizing the independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, until then subject to the Patriarch of Moscow Kirill I.
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Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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